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Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

Communication Games is a new and radical interpretation of the relationshipbetween culture and communication. It explores the idea that culture andcommunication studies should be seen predominantly in relation to strugglesand conflicts within the social arena. It criticizes the conventionalheritage of the social sciences and humanities. Culture and communicationare conceived not merely as means of integrating social actors, but assemiotic ways of providing fitness indicators that allow for the resolutionof competition between individuals.

From the perspective of Peircean semiotics and the Darwinian understandingof life processes, Communication Games redefines culture in terms ofDarwin’s notion of sexual selection. Moving on from the realization thatsexual selection creates individual organisms with conflicting interests,Communication Games emphasizes the contribution of game theory to semioticsand communication studies.

The book demonstrates how cooperation and shared conventions eventuallyemerge, and how conflicts are resolved through the display of costly andinflated signs. It is from these inflated signs and the escalation ofexcessive messages that cultures gain a certain degree of stability.Communication Games proposes a new way of understanding culture,communication, and semiotic exchange in terms of game theory.

Reviews:

"Over the past twenty years the insights of semiotics have inspired andguided research across the whole spectrum of the humanities - fromanthropology to queer theory, from literary history to film studies, fromphilosophy to art history. Yet, with time the imbalances and fault lineswithin the original core of semiotic theory have also emerged, or halfemerged. Neiva names and defines a set of problems that semiotics mustfinally resolve - before the whole engine runs out of steam. A daring,inventive, passionately original book, this is essential reading foreveryone concerned with culture, signs, meanings, subjects." -Norman Bryson

"Blending social history with evolutionary biology, Eduardo Neiva shows howsexual selection impacts cultural practice through complex communicativeexchange. Debunking conventional explanations of cultural development, theauthor employs a massive body of evidence ranging from the bloodybattle-grounds of ancient conflict to the technologically-driven terrain ofcontemporary life to fashion an intriguing argument." -James Lull, San Jose State University

Of interest to: Libraries and Researchers in the Fields of Semiotics,Communication, and Culture